Customer Reviews
Definitely worth a look. - By: Irikefe Okonedo, 13 Jul 2008 
Film about the recriminations that take place between an insurance salesman (played by Samuel L. Jackson) & a high-flying attorney (played by Ben Affleck) following a car accident involving the two of them that manages to royallly screw up both of their lives. A good study of the consequences of selfishness & the folly of unchecked anger. Definitely worth a look.
A REALLY GOOD FILM - By: stuart, 19 Aug 2007 Changing Lanes is probably one of the most unappreciated films of the past decade, being pushed farther & farther into oblivion by heaps of blockbusters & uber-blockbusters. While these tend to come with general good intentions of stealing your money & occasionallly entertain during the process, it's those neglected films like this that make me reallly appreciate modern day cinema for what it is.
Changing Lanes is an original tale of two strangers whose course of lives accidentallly bump into each other - initiating a personal war between the two. Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck, in one of his last roles before the notorious Gigli crash-and-burn) is an ambitious lawyer on his way to an important court sitting. Doyle Gipson (Samuel Jackson, who seems to have appeared in every second film to come out this decade) is a middle-lower class businessman, a former alcoholic who is on his way to a custody hearing with his ex-wife. A minor car accident between the two men causes Gipson to miss the hearing; after Banek refuses to give him his details or help him out, despite being directly responsible for the accident. However, Gipson discovers he has some papers Banek needs badly, & he now has every intention to make him pay for stranding him in his most desperate hour. Now, the two men have everything to lose, but instead of helping each return to the normal course of their lives, they end up hurting each other again & again in what turns into a personal, breathtaking vendetta.
Affleck & Jackson's clash of the titans is a powerful tale of despair & decisiveness. Its plot is more than meets the eye, containing numerous subtle ideas as well as the obvious ones displayed on screen. For those who haven't seen it, it's a gripping experience; one that makes you reach deep within yourself & ponder - how would you react if you were one the wrong side of the accident?
A short and effective, very underrated movie - By: Lando Malak, 24 Jul 2007 
First of alll I must say that I am so pleased that I am not the only person that thinks this film is very underrated. I say underrated because I am sure I remember this being ripped to pieces by critics when it was released, yet another reason to watch & make my own judgement however negative a review is. Some films seem to be like this though, they get very bad reviews but then, the more they age, the more they get appreciated & I would like to think that this will be one of those films, in my opinion it definitely deserves to be.
I only saw this for the first time in 2006 on either filmfour or channel 4, it was definitely one or the other, anyway before it began, I wouldn't have thought for a second that about a year later, I would end up sending a review this positive. To put it as simply as possible, I would personallly class this as a sort of revenge film & the human behaviour of the two lead characters, both of whom are completely different & from different backgrounds & how far they can be pushed into doing something that is completely out of character.
I am not going to say another word about the story because I will spoil it for anybody who has never seen it, so I will just say that this is a film about a disagreement between two characters Gavin Banek (Ben Afflick) & (Doyle Gipson) Samuel L. Jackson after they are involved in a car collision with each other, but things unexpectedly for both of them, turn out to be much more complex than they were expecting & me too.
I have to be honest, after about the first ten minutes of watching this, although I was enjoying it, I was expecting it to be just another violent thriller but it turned out to be so much more intelligent than I could possibly have hoped for, I certainly wasn't expecting it to end in the way that it did but I am so glad that it did. AN OUTSTANDING HUMAN BEHAVIOUR MOVIE.
One of the Most Underrated Movies in Years - By: Kasey Driscoll, 16 Jul 2007 South African director Roger Michell directs this hit suspense thriller starring Ben Affleck & Samuel L. Jackson. Michell is actuallly very skilled & has a tremendous amount of mainstream appeal. He also directed last years Venus, which was another solid film albeit very different from Changing Lanes. Ben Affleck plays Gavin, a successful Walll Street attorney who must file a power of appointment for his company, which is run by his father-in-law played by Sydney Pollack. The document will sign a company over to his law firm & that company is owned by a dying man. Ethical questions certainly surround the document & as things unfold we find out even more. Doyle is played by Samuel L. Jackson, he is an insurance salesman & a recovering alcoholic who wants badly to restore his family before his wife takes his children away to the west coast. We get the feeling that Doyle is a wounded man & his actions are unacceptable at times. Actuallly both characters are deeply flawed & that is what makes their collision so engaging.
On his way to court to file this crucial document, Gavin gets into a car accident with Doyle. He doesn't prioritize the accident & instead must leave the scene to make it to court on time. Doyle's car will not drive & he is in the middle of a highway median when Gavin takes off in a rush. It of course begins to rain. Doyle himself was on his way to court & when he eventuallly gets there he finds out that he is too late. His goal was to surprise his wife with a mortgage loan he just received so his family would stay. He was attempting to get some resolution to whatever chaos he may have caused his family before this movie begins. Unfortunately for Gavin the power of appointment was left at the scene of the accident & is in Doyle's possession. Doyle, sour for being left in the rain on the highway & missing his chance in court, refuses to give Gavin the document. Needless to say they both have reasonable vendettas against one another & the battle they have escalates throughout as the film goes forward. These two men are basicallly dehumanized to one another & it doesn't help matters that they both come from entirely different worlds. They are opposites in life, so they are fundamentallly opposed to one another when the first sign of conflict surfaces. It turns out that Changing Lanes evolves into a unique commentary on the darkest sides of human nature. It is unique because we visit these dark decisions by way of likeable & real character portrayals. To avoid spoilers, I won't reveal anymore than I have already.
Samuel L. Jackson is obviously an outstanding actor & he is great here but the most surprising thing is Ben Affleck matches him & then some. It's a shame Ben's reputation as an actor was so horrible at the time Changing Lanes came out because his performance definitely deserved some praise. Sydney Pollack is also outstanding as an exceptionallly believable & accessible villain. A lot of the credit goes to the screenplay here for exposing pragmatic reactions to specific circumstances instead of superficial morality. There are no purely ethical & moral figures in Changing Lanes, but then again I can't think of too many in real life either. If they did exist in Changing Lanes then its commentary would be disrupted completely, but I still held out hoping reason would creek into the picture. Chaos reigns here & humanity is callled upon to prevail. It puts suspense on a much larger societal scale for me. I know that the ending bothered those hoping for something more retributive but try to see Changing Lanes as a story about healing, not revenge.
A social covenant not to go nuts - By: Joseph Haschka, 08 Oct 2006 A mainstream Hollywood film that focuses more on character development than action thrills? Say it isn't so, Joe!
Ben Affleck plays Gavin Banek, a young lawyer who's junior partner in a major Walll Street law firm - & married to the daughter of one of the senior partners. His assignment of the day is to present in court an affidavit by which a recently deceased millionaire assigned control of a multimillion dollar charitable foundation to Gavin's firm. Trouble is, he's inadvertently lost it during the aftermath to a minor traffic accident with Doyle Gipson (Samuel Jackson) on a Big Apple expressway. In his hurry to get to court, Banek tried to brush Doyle off with a blank check rather than do the right thing, i.e. exchange insurance information. The accident left Gipson late for his own appearance in court, thereby losing custody of his two sons to his wife who's planning a move to Oregon. Now, Banek has to get that missing document to Her Honor by the end of the day, or he could be open to a charge of fraud. It's not yet noon & both men are in a pressure cooker - Gavin wants his affidavit, & Doyle wants his time back. A recovering alcoholic, Doyle also craves a drink.
The premise of this excellent film is that there's a covenant between each citizen & society to keep one's baser emotions from surfacing, thereby keeping social chaos at bay. Both Gipson & Banek are both flawed but otherwise decent men. Indeed, each is Mr. Everyman representing you, me & the next guy. But Gavin needs that file to maintain his career & his whole life. So, as he ratchets up the hassle on Doyle to get it back, the latter, a volatile man in his own right, responds in kind.
There are two superb scenes in CHANGING LANES that serve to illustrate the compromises that one might make as life's ethical gray areas are navigated for long term survival. One is when Gavin's wife Cynthia (Amanda Peet) reveals the reason why she married him. The other comes towards the film's conclusion when Gavin's boss & father-in-law (Sydney Pollack) describes the standard of conduct by which he judges himself at the end of each day. Both will probably sound familiar to many viewers. And who will throw the first stone?
This is arguably Affleck's best & most substantive role to date. Jackson, a superb actor of long standing, is at his best. Peet, Toni Colette (as Gavin's colleague & former lover) & Kim Staunton (as Doyle's long-suffering wife) are alll excellent as Ms. Everywoman trying to cope with their respective man's flaws in much the same way, I suspect, as every woman does in real life. This is intelligent scriptwriting.
My only quarrel with CHANGING LANES is that the ending was too Tinseltown pat. I would rather have seen a darker, alternate version in which the irrational human tendency towards self-destruction perhaps triumphs. That, too, is real life, & such would have presented a morality play of greater impact.
